Global Citizen Journey (GCJ) returns to India in October 2018 with ambitious and adventurous plans to visit one of the most beautiful, diverse, and contested areas of India. Most of us know little about Kashmir beyond a vague awareness that it is embroiled in intractable conflict. We will be guided by our local sponsor ELFA International (Education and Livelihood for All) who will connect us with local Kashmiri leaders, nonprofits, and organizations so that we can learn, explore, and listen together. Our goal is to foster dialogue and relationship building and find bases of unity, a common purpose, and a creative process as well as a project that will be meaningful to the Kashmiri people.

Learn more here (NOTE: For those of you in the Seattle area, join us for a inspiring evening on Thursday, 8 March when we’ll share stories from last January’s delegation to India as well as talk about the situation in Kashmir and plans for this upcoming delegation.)

Agriculture is the main pillar of the economy in Kashmir, but tourism has been rising in recent years and now Kashmir is one of the top tourist destinations in India. Despite this, Kashmir is also one of the most militarized zones in the world. Learn more about the northernmost province of India here.

Join us for a life-changing adventure in October 2018! Global Citizen Journey returns to India with ambitious and adventurous plans to visit one of the most beautiful, diverse, and contested areas of India. Most of us know little about Kashmir beyond a vague awareness that it is embroiled in intractable conflict. We will be guided by our local sponsor ELFA International (Education and Livelihood For All) who will connect us with local Kashmiri leaders, nonprofits, and organizations so that we can learn, explore, and listen together. Our goal is to foster dialogue and relationship building and find bases of unity, a common purpose, and a creative process as well as a project that will be meaningful to the Kashmiri people. Read more.

For someone like me – a somewhat ordinary woman – thinking globally has been a relatively new experience. Cocooned in my comfort zone I spent most of my life commuting between work and home, until work made me travel and explore my own country, quite late in my early thirties. The nature of my work made me more ambitious and to even travel to the United States for an advanced degree. It was then that migration, refugees, conflict, disparity, racism sounded like real words for me; but so did globalization, interconnectedness, peace, and justice. In these past two or three years, I have oscillated several times between momentary greatness, reflecting on such global issues and my comfort zone; job, home, and family. And then, I got the opportunity to embark on a global citizen journey in my own hometown as an Indian delegate.

So, this diverse crowd of strangers with unknown pasts, unknown political leanings, and religious sentiments embarked on a journey when they would live and travel together for eight days. There would not have been a more appropriate place for our stay than ‘Maher’ – a home for mentally-disturbed women and destitute children. We lived with the inmates under the same roof, yet we were from different worlds and separated by our privileges. However, living close to those women and children gave us the opportunity to understand their lives, know a bit of their past, the ordeals they survived, and witness the magical happiness they have created in their home of some 150 family members. Their enthusiasm and hopes are so contagious that one can hardly avoid being affected. We visited more such Maher homes in different villages witnessing the difference Maher has made in the lives of so many children. It was overwhelming to hear of the dreams and aspirations of the children who would have otherwise lived a life of destitution and neglect on the streets. Some would have begged, some abused, and some would have not lived for long.

Meena is on the far end with blue scarf and the GCJ director, Susan, is leaning and surrounded by several Indian delegates

The GCJ delegation was a motley crowd of eight American women, a Spanish young woman, a young man from Venezuela, a teen from Germany, and nine Indian delegates – six women and eight men – and a wonderful Jewish-American woman leading the team. They were of different ages, professions, experiences and probably the only thing that was common among them was that they belonged to the same planet, same globe. Though interacting with a person from a different country and skin color was not a new experience for me professionally, but I wondered how it would be like to interact with them on a personal level. How scary would it be to reveal our personal choices, thoughts, feelings, fears, and even some prejudices? Would they like me? Would I like them? What would we do for whole eight days together? And then, very gently, we were exposed to the techniques of compassionate listening that soon bridged the distance between hearts, patched up the differences or at least expanded our capacity to accept and include thoughts and people that differed from us. For example, an intense debate on how to fight sexual violence ended in accepting all views from changing the way we bring up our children, being vigilant, self-defense, pepper sprays, and even spiritual intervention.

There was so much to learn, so much to experience, so much to reflect and absorb. How could we not have been transformed by this experience? An exercise that particularly comes to mind is when I was paired with a stranger and we had to share our feelings and thoughts at that exact moment and the other person would listen compassionately, without reacting, and without judging and with full attention. For me, it was a great feeling to know that no matter what the person in front of me said, I had the power to react and make the other person feel listened to without having to react. Many such interactions involved diving into the deepest and some dark corners of my mind and re-surfacing of feelings that had not yet died but still buried deep into oblivion. For someone like me who is very selective about what I am sharing and with whom, it was a great churning of emotions and a whole lot of extra effort to open up. It made me wonder how inept was I to openly accepting my feelings, show my wounds and weaknesses, let go, and be able to talk calmly about the most disturbing facts of my life. Some wounds never heal, but it was nice to have someone to listen to me and acknowledge the pain especially when there was a safe space to open up. It is true that life hardens us as it subjects us to traumas and troubles over time and to protect ourselves from being hurt, we build walls around us – walls of indifference, insensitivity, and aversion to everything that may expose our weaknesses. Special efforts are surely needed to cultivate compassion in hearts hardened by misery and distrust.

There were some light moments as well with cooking and serving Jewish delicacies, American apple pie, Indian street food, and some green smoothies by an Indian delegate, who is a passionate proponent of organic farming. Some witty delegates lightened the air by punctuating intense moments with their humor. A dance program with the children and women of Maher, however, stole the show revealing a bit of Maher’s recipe of creating joy by people who once had nothing. Most of us, especially the foreign delegates could not have enough of the beautiful things made at the Maher production house – purses and bags of flamboyant colors and elegant designs, candles, greeting cards, and the spicy Indian masalas.

Being a learning maniac, I was enthused with the Open-Space Technology and World Café that were on the agenda towards the end. Did I wonder how chaotic it would be when 150 people discussed equity, justice, and empowerment in a not so big hall of a local college? But the day dawned to put all my apprehensions and anxieties to rest as a team of Maher volunteers dressed in bright yellow that we fondly refer to as the ‘Yellow Brigade’ made it happen. In no time, 150 people were organized into groups to collectively harvest ideas, dreams, ambitions, and plans towards advancing humanity to a more just, equal, and empowered society.

Then came the final day, the day of adjourning, that left us marveling at the countless deep interactions we had among ourselves. We would go back into our smaller, individual worlds but not without realizing that all these small individual worlds collectively made up the larger one and in knowing that we are connected. That no matter how different our citizenship, skin color, language, or lifestyles were, we share common values of justice, equity, and compassion. That the injustice to one community was an injustice to all and the sufferings of some people would leave scars on all humanity and that humanity on earth shared a common global future. The GCJ was not about crossing borders or traveling places for me, but breaking barriers of fear, distrust, indifference between me and people who were not like me and thus being a Global Citizen.

The weeks were so packed and amazing that I never got to blog during the delegation itself! Now the US delegates have departed and I am alone for a few days in the beautiful hill station of Panchgani at a wonderful conference center and headquarters for Initiatives of Change (IofC) — an organization that was once called Moral Re-Armament (MRA), an international moral and spiritual movement founded in 1938 by Frank Buchman as Europe was re-arming militarily. Look it up on Wikipedia – a remarkable organization that has nurtured many ‘global citizens’ for so many years. Like Compassionate Listening, they believe change arises from the inside out. They identify four absolute values: honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love.

Parag (with his lovely wife Asma) works at Panchgani. He arranged many of our Delhi-Agra-Pune logistics

Who needs a conference room for a meeting in this lovely place

It has been wonderful to have the beauty of this refuge filled with calm and green trees, flowers, and positive vibrations — before I rejoin Maher with all its vibrant life, chaos, and the noise of streets and many children – all bathed in love and compassion.

Our GCJ delegation was filled with 24 extraordinary people. Of course, I knew our awesome 8 US women well – and felt so deeply supported and appreciated by them. Then we had 3 internationals – a German young woman of just 18 years who is on her gap year as a volunteer in Pune, a lovely young man from Venezuela who has been volunteering at Maher, and a Spanish woman who had been an intern in Pune as a social worker. Then we had our amazing Indian delegates – 5 women and 4 men plus 3 Maher guys (Mangesh, Gaus and their dear friend Nikhil). So in all, the delegation comprised 8 men and 16 women (including me!). We had about a dozen circles – including team building, compassionate listening. and a powerful gender dialogue. Fascinating discussions! Of course, we had a lot of explaining to do about our new US administration. Many of us made traditional home-cooked dishes for each other: I made matzoh ball chicken soup, Irene managed to make apple crisp, and Liz stuffed us with her amazing self-caught and smoked salmon plus more.

While together at Maher – we stayed at Vatsalydam. It is one of the largest homes, a big property with gardens and smaller homes for grandmas, boys, and mentally-disturbed persons, and elderly men. The main house had over 100 mentally ill or developmentally-delayed women on the ground floor and several homes for girls on the upstairs. It was so beautiful to see the interactions between these different groups – filled with loving compassion, patience, and affection. Some of my favorite times were singing and dancing joyously together, playing with the kids, and hugging the women. Some of our most exhausting moments were the trying, long, bumpy, and dusty bus rides to many outlying Maher homes. When I have a chance to debrief with Gaus, Mangesh, and Sister Lucy we will explore the question of ‘quantity’ vs ‘quality’ of these visits from the delegates perspective. We longed for more time to interact with the residents but often these visits were mainly being very, very warmly greeted – with song and ritual (incense and bindi marking with red vermillon or gold turmeric powder, perhaps a cup of tea or water, a short talk, occasional performance by students, possibly very short Q&A, etc). Before we knew it, we were back on to the bus to yet another location. Of particular interest was the tribal village that has been transformed by the relationship developed with Maher. Now they are growing many acres of veggies and children are going to school.

We saw the slum where the ‘Fun School’ attracts little ones with games and food as they wouldn’t be sent to school. Also, after ten long and patient years they now have a computer lab for the older children. What a struggle of love, after building relationship and trust (15 years ago or so, Sister Lucy actually moved in to live in the village for several months – they were so wary, thinking she was coming to convert them to Catholicism or trick them and take their land which had happened by others) the Fun School started. Some of the school-aged children were brought to live at Maher so they could go to school. They began to show the value and the culture changed to where school was appealing. One of the school girls has now become a policewoman and another one a social worker! They started the computer lab about 10 years ago: at first it wasn’t valued – no one knew anything about computers. They were all stolen. Sr Lucy persevered and put replacements in. After a while again they were stolen. Again she put in replacements… by now some of the kids were learning and appreciating and the community came to value them and trust her sincerity. So at last, the community itself guards them and calls as soon as there is any trouble. One of my most striking insights or lessons as a global citizen came on that visit day: one of the delegates said, well why don’t they just put in a security camera! Mangesh, dear one who grew up at Maher and says, ‘love is my religion’, quickly responded: that would be materialistic instead of heart-fullistic. Wow! In our western world we value the thing – the property – and I realized I was blind to the message hidden in a security camera which is that we don’t trust you and we value this property way more than our relationship or connection with you.

I am fatiguing so that’s all for now! I’ll hope to get to write more soon about our amazing Delhi visits with the likes of Vandana Shiva and Swanu Agnivesh as well as several extraordinary NGOs, our tourist adventures in Old Delhi and Agra and so much more about Maher and the delegation. Write to me! Tell me the news and spirit and arising movement!

We will begin in Delhi: all 11 US delegates will gather by Thursday evening, January 12. We’ll spend the weekend enjoying visits to historical sites, such as temples, fortes, Old City, the museum at the site of Gandhi’s assassination — and a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We will also visit several NGO’s and meet local leaders.

Then on to Pune where we’ll join our 11 Indian delegates plus 2 Maher hosts and spend 8 days in the rural areas of Maher homes, interacting with the women and children of our home site (Vatsalyadham) as well as visiting the many varied aspects of Maher activities, including the self help groups, preschool in the slum, women’s vocational training, etc.

We’ll also visit Pragati Leadership in Pune, to discover how they combine western results-orientation training with spirituality, as well as their small foundation that supports and empowers urban women. The US delegates will spend our last days up in the Hill Station of Panchagani, partaking in the international program of Initiatives of Change in the morning and spending the afternoon reflecting and harvesting on all our learning. The program ends in Pune, on Friday afternoon, January 27.

We are thrilled to welcome Sister Lucy. Come join us Tuesday evening, September 20, at the Phinney neighborhood center. She’ll be accompanied by two extraordinary young men who grew up at Maher – Gaus Sayyad and Mangesh Pol. We’ll gather at 6:45 and begin the program by 7 pm. What a night!

We headed out early towards Agra in an especially comfortable and spacious car for the three of us, arranged by a travel agent. Interesting that all the stops were now at much more upscale (and expensive) restaurants that were also filled with overpriced souvenirs to buy. I kind of missed our more low-keyed grassroots experiences.

We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, built by Emperor Akbar, capital of Moghul empire during its hay day in the 16th century. This spot was chosen as the Emperor made a pilgrimage to a saint in hopes of a blessing for fertility so he would have a male heir – when his hopes were fulfilled, he moved the capitol and built this splendid City (such were the riches of Emperors), soon to become a ghost town as there were difficulties with the water supply. Akbar was a fascinating character: Muslim but extremely devoted to inter-faith (indeed, he developed a new religion called “Deen Ilahi” to try to synthesize all faiths. His palace included fabulous structures for Hindi and Christian as well as Muslim. Read more